Warriors 2: Journey to the Center of the Cats
by The Magnanimous Cockroach
Summary: Starring Nic Cage! Newsweek Times review: "An epic tour de force, rich in thought-provoking social commentary and unintentionally graphic depictions of one woman's devolution into complete and utter insanity. This is more than a fan fiction. It is art."
1. An Airport Full of Cats

It was decided that Gerp and Rodle needed a break from dealing with ridiculous teenage girls, evil kings, and the best friends of the aforementioned teenage girls, who, to put it in one respect, were _quacks_. So they dawned their vacation clothing epically. First, a three-piece suit. Then, their matching superhero garb. Then their science uniforms, which are lab coats and glasses. And finally bermuda shorts and button-up shirts with hibiscus flowers on them. Gerp and Rodle were ready for action.

And action there was! "Too many cats!" Gerp exclaimed. Indeed, as soon as they left their interdimensional airplane, there were too many cats. They were everywhere, mewing to each other in strange tones that left Gerp's assumption to be that they could only be talking to each other.

"They're calling each other by stupid names!" Rodle cried, outraged. He knew a lot about biology. He dutifully fastened his straw tourist hat and straightened his sunglasses before leaving Gerp in a sea of felines to tell the cat at the cash register of a nearby tiny Subway (they have those in airports), that its name was not Oakclaw and that was not a cat name. Its name was _felis catus_. Or possibly Princess.

Gerp followed his companion and grasped Rodle's shoulder just in time to stop him from spraying the cashier with a spray bottle he always kept handy. She was being a bad kitty. "Rodle, relax!" Gerp persuasioned, "We're here to have a good time! You can't let these things get to you!"

"Meow," said Oakclaw, wondering if either of the men would like to buy a sandwich.

"I'll have a five dollar footlong... WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY ONLY COME IN KIBBLE." Gerp was infuriated. "Now, I'll have you know, young lady, this is a _respectable _sandwich shop where we come from."

"Meow," meowed a cat behind them. Its name was Goldstar, as it had gotten many of those from its teacher in kindergarten.

"_Felis catus_," Rodle corrected in as polite a tone as he could manage. "Not Goldstar. That is not a cat name either."

Goldstar was pissed off. He had just gotten off the plane after visiting his irritating relatives. All he wanted was a sandwich, and the dirty foreigners were keeping him from it. "Hissa hissa," hissed Goldstar, imitating the vampires of DeviantART's Rose3212, who is an excellent writer.

"Excuse me," humaned a human voice, "what is the hold up here? All I want is a soda. I don't eat kibble."

Gerp turned to look, and saw the most glorious superheroine he'd ever witnessed in his life. She wasn't even from a syringe, and he hoped she wouldn't leave hideous scars on his arms or kill him. She was obviously not from this land either, and he felt a certain kinship there. He quickly ripped off his tourist clothes and his science uniform to reveal his superhero costume. It was unflattering.

"One soda please," he deliberately told Oakclaw, and pushed a few dollars toward her. More than enough to buy a soda, but Oakclaw was unimpressed. Cats do not have opposable thumbs, and therefore do not operate with human currency. They find it racist.

"I could've told him that," Rodle pointed out to the narrator. The narrator was unimpressed, too, and did her best impression of a wet house cat. Mrrrow.

The superheroine (or supervillainess, as she was), was also unimpressed, making three unimpressions within the span of like twenty seconds. The two science-men were not at the top of their game. "Look," she said, "I don't have any cat money either. I'll just get a soda and deal with the law enforcement later." This was her logic concerning a lot of things, which was why she was a supervillain. She flounced over to the fountain machine, stuck her head under the lever labeled "Mtn Dew", and opened her mouth. It was the most beautiful thing Gerp had ever witnessed. Rodle had seen beautifuler.

But before the supervillainess could pull the lever, thus transferring the Mtn Dew from the soda fountain to her face, a cat in a tiny policeman's uniform tried desperately to fasten a pair of teeny handcuffs around her ankle, because that was as far up as he could reach. It was very cute, and since he had no thumbs, it wasn't working at all.

"Aww," cooed the supervillainess, patting the little policecat on his police-hat-clad head. "I'm sowwy, wittle guy. I didn't mean to pwovoke your tiny powice fowce." She straightened suddenly. "I really shouldn't be here. I have things to thing." And then she power walked away in her high heels. It was admirable.

Gerp was no longer lovesick, and this culture shock was gaining voltage. "We should go," he whispered to Rodle, who had taken to petting the cat in his little police uniform. The officer looked perturbed, and cats are really good at perturbed looks. "Our hotel reservations need reserved, anyway."

Rodle blinked. "You didn't reserve us a hotel?"

"_No_. I thought _you _did and by the time I realized you didn't it was too late."

"Well, that's water under the bridge, I guess, my compadre. Let's find a hotel not filled with cats."

It was impossible.


	2. A Hotel Full of Cats

**Utterly unimportant author's note: Thanks again to Cloudemeh, my number one fan and most excellent comrade; my cat, Zelda, who has taught me everything I know (or claim to know) about cats; ants (thanks, ants – thants); Missouri for making me realize I hate Missouri. And, finally, Syamy, who deserves a mention here for being amazing. These are the reasons I write, so it **_**stands to reason **_**that if you don't enjoy my writing, you should go after these things. Preferably Missouri first, but Cloudemeh can hold her own. **

Gerp and Rodle managed to find one hotel not completely covered in cats. The others were literally made of cats. It was awe-inspiring, yet terrifying, kind of like that place in Mexico where all the Monarch butterflies congregate. Like that, except... cats.

Rodle had spent much of his time trying to correct each and every cat and make sure it knew its name was _felis catus_, and not "Starface or whatever" to quote the man of the hour. By the time they reached the hotel, their rocket suitcases levitating faithfully by their sides like companionable canines, Rodle's throat was dry as bone and _felis catus _no longer sounded like a legitimate phrase to him, he'd said it so often.

"It smells like cat pee here. Well... in this general and large vicinity," Gerp muttered. "Whose idea was it for us to vacation here?"

"I think it was Padwyn, sir," Rodle wheezed. He wondered what he'd have to do for a glass of water without cat hair floating in it.

"Ah, yes, that sounds like something she'd think of. 'Oh, cats are so cute! You'll love it! They all talk, too!'" Gerp squeaked in his best impression of the teenage girl. "And she's off fighting epic battles and eating in food courts while we sit around – some of us in cape and mask" (for he still hadn't taken off his superhero garb since meeting the supervillainess at the airport) "- and covered in cat hair! Dirty creatures."

"Now, Gerp," Rodle whispered hoarsely, "Don't say that about them – no, young man, your name is _felis catus_, not Stripebutt – they're intelligent animals after all. I have the Grace of Biology, so I can _relate _to them."

"Well, relate that we'd like a room here."

"Can't speak... too thirsty..." Rodle theatrically collapsed on the floor of the hotel, frightening the cats carpeting it.

"Meow," meowed a human voice. Gerp turned and was once again smitten. There were possibly some little hearts floating around or something. He was suddenly thankful he hadn't ditched the cape, because the supervillainess he'd met at the airport was standing at the concierge's counter, apparently asking about restaurant rates. Gerp realized it was unsurprising she should be here – who else but a cat would want to stay in a writhing mass of cats? This hotel had something going for it, but he couldn't quite place what.

The ladywoman turned and noticed the two, particularly Gerp. Women have a certain way of smelling everything that might be in love with them within a few hundred yards. "Oh, hey, guys! Interesting we should meet again."

"This is like a Marvel Team-Up event," Gerp swooned.

"Yeah, cool! I picked up this Rosetta Stone thing, and now I can speak cat! It's magic! I was lost in translation, but no more!" She fist-pumped the air triumphantly.

"I'm lost in your eyes," Gerp pointed out.

"I'm wearing a mask," the supervillainess pointed out... to her face.

"I'm dying of thirst," Rodle announced.

"Yeah, me too," said the supervillainess, not grasping the seriousness of Rodle's situation. "If that tiny police-cat hadn't distracted me, I'd be full of Mtn Dew!"

"I think it's called 'Mountain Dew'," Gerp said helpfully.

"For realsies? Then why do they spell it like the abbreviation of _mitten_? That's not even how you abbreviate 'mountain'. Not buying it, sir."

After this the narrator realized that wasn't funny at all and put the lid back on the "Criticizing Pop Culture" jar where it belonged. She wondered if this is what metafiction is supposed to sound like, then promptly decided it wasn't and went back to the story, with one less genre label and one more bout of identity crisis under her belt.

"Hey, what's your name, anyway?" Gerp asked flirtatiously. He hoped that 'nasally and asthmatically' was a synonym for 'flirtatiously'.

"I'm not going to tell you my _name_. I'm a supervillain!"

"Super... villain?" Gerp questioned, heartbroken.

"I just need a glass of water," Rodle begged.

"Um, yeah, dude. Why did you think I broke into this hotel?" It was then Gerp noticed the gapingly broken front window and the police tape... everywhere. Adorable kitty officers milled about inefficiently, munching on donut-shaped freeze-dried fish and drinking coffee. It occurred to Rodle that that probably wasn't good for them.

"Why are you still here?" Gerp asked.

"The suspect always returns to the scene of the crime. Also, I forgot my purse."

"That makes sense," Gerp admitted, admittedly rather upset. She was not the woman he thought she was. But she was nonetheless attractive.

After rooting around for some time, the supervillainess found her purse (it was Gucci), and vacated the premises. Gerp and Rodle managed to book a room by themselves, although it occurred to Gerp that the woman could've been of some help, rare as that is for women. But this hotel room was not without the excitement of the rest of the story. No sooner had they arrived then some sort of wizard busted their door down with his magic. He cynically turned toward them and gave both an equally cynical look.

"Who the quesadilla are you?" Rodle screamed, feeling much better after running his head under the tap for some time.

"I'm Nic Cage," cyniced Nic Cage. "I'm the Warrior."  
"I thought the cats were Warriors. Or something," Gerp chimed in.

Nic Cage chuckled cynically, as Nic Cages are wont to do. "You were wrong, my friend. I'm here to save the day. Anyone seen anyone bad around?"

"Well, there was that one girl," Rodle said, recalling the events of half a page or so ago.

"_Quiet_, Rodle," Gerp muttered, not wanting his love to be cynically destroyed by Nic Cage. He knew the man's power well.

"Quiet, indeed!" exclaimed Nic Cage cynically. "That is all the information I require! I'll be off, now, and spend the rest of the movie examining clues and getting ever closer to the identity of this mysterious female. Then, I'll save the day once again just when it looks like it's too late!" He cynically blasted another hole through the wall of Gerp and Rodle's hotel room, then jumped out the window.

"That was possibly the strangest thing ever," Gerp told his companion.

"I know what you mean," Rodle said. "I think I need a drink. Let's find a bar not covered in cats."

It was impossible.


	3. A Center Full of Cats

It occurred to Rodle that alcohol was probably not good for cats, at all. He wondered if anyone in this land cared one ounce for their health. As they drew closer to a nearby bar, having escaped their decimated hotel room on the coattails of the supervillainess' escapade, there seemed to be an increasingly increased amount of car accidents. Indeed, everywhere, sirens blared, lights flashed, and cats in adorable neck braces were adorably loaded onto tiny stretchers by other cats. It was like a train wreck made of sunshine. You cannot look away, but you are blinded by the massive and constant reaction of hydrogen atoms being smashed together into helium at millions of degrees. Gerp contemplated this as he wondered, _whiskey or rum ? _Both, he decided decidedly.

When they reached the bar, both men were amazed at the populace. While drunken, adorable cats with stupid names stumbled around outside waiting to get hit by a car (which was really unsurprising, considering the cars were driven by possibly drunken cats as well), the people inside were foreigners. Rodle used his extreme knowledge of animal anatomy to decipher that no one inside the bar except the employees was a cat.

But the most amazing thing about the inside of the bar was that everyone was cowering. _Why _they were cowering remains to be discovered. It will now be discovered. Once Gerp's eyes adjusted to the harsh, blinding, brighter-than-daylight glow of the bar (cats keep their bars extra bright, as it makes them feel less like tiny devils), he realized there was a bar fight going on. A bar fight of epic proportions.

Several holes were blown in the walls while the denizens tried not to become part of such holes in the future. Gerp knew these holes, knew them well. "Nic Cage," he growled.

"Ah, yes, the name of my captive!" cackled a familiar voice which was slightly less familiar sounding evil and commanding rather than meowing or asking for a soda at Subway.

"I've been Nic Caged," Nic Cage cynically admitted from his Nic Cage. It was made of bars that were made of porcelain, Nic Cage's sole weakness.

Gerp's would-be girlfriend strutted about the Nic Cage in her high heels, eying her captive. "Thanks to you two, all my plans are coming to fruition! Soon, the world will be at my command! Without Nic Cage, these cats are helpless!"

Rodle gasped. "She totally double-crossed you."

Gerp didn't understand how, but since he was Smarted with Grace, he figured he shouldn't admit it.

"I can't do wizard magic from this Nic Cage!" Nic Cage cyniced angrily. "Except one spell. Are you two prepared to save the world in my stead?" Nic Cage asked Gerp and Rodle.

"Buh?" answered Gerp.

"What?" answered Rodle.

"_Good enough!_" bellowed Nic Cage from the Nic Cage, and he cast his final wizard spell with his magic ringwandthing before it exploded and then he exploded and then the bar exploded. Everything exploded, actually, but no cats or characters were harmed because that would be inhumane, and racist. The supervillainess was Hispanic.

"Where are we?" Gerp asked, in a somewhat cynical voice he wasn't accustomed to. He found he had a new affinity for deadpan humor. Was he also made middle-aged and therefore somewhat wizened, yet distinguished?

Rodle awoke from a comfortable hammock beside his friend. "I think we're... in the Center of the Cats. Something tells me so. Something that can only be described as Nic Cage's powers."

Gerp surveyed his surroundings. Aside from the hammock gently cradling Rodle's thin form between two large pines, they seemed to be... in some sort of suburb. "_This _is the Center of the Cats? Somehow I would think there would be more cats."

"MEOW," meowed the entire planet.

"Oh, _god_!" Rodle screamed. "We are upon one large cat!" He fell out of his hammock and onto the cat hair resembling grass beneath.

"A planet made of a cat?" Gerp questioned, incredulous.

"It probably has a stupid name, too," Rodle said morosely.

He was right. Its name was Earthface. That is the most stupid name of them all, because there is no meaning behind it other than that the cat's face was the earth. Also, the rest of its body. But the sky was blue, and the sun was shining. This seemed to be just a regular old suburb in middle class America. Gerp and Rodle knew otherwise.

"Do you remember who sent us here?" Rodle asked, wishing to ignite his comrade's spirit.

"Nic. Cage," Gerp said darkly, clenching his fist. Now it was up to them to save the world. From the Center of the Cats outward.

"That's right," said Rodle. "And now we have to stop that supervillainess."

"Do you think she is really the greatest evil?"

Rodle sighed. "Gerp. Gerrrrrrpppppp. I know you. I've known you for several lifetimes now, and I know your weaknesses. This is no time for them. Nic Cage chose _us_. We _have _to stop her. Put your feelings aside from now, and when we remove the magical spell from the girl that attracts her to jerks – for she obviously has some jerk boyfriend, and that is why her psyche is so muddled – then you can be with her. Right now, she is _evil_. The essence. The _pure _essence even."

"Purer than sugar, whitened and with molasses removed?"

"Even purer, and even more _dastardly_," Rodle said resolutely.

"More dastardly than a contract signed by sugar harvesters that forbids organization of a trade union?"

"_Even more dastardly_."

Gerp sighed and rubbed his temple, as was his habit when he hadn't played any Tetris in a while. "This is a big mess, my compadre."

"There's only one way we're both going to get out of this alive."

"MEOW_," _meowed the planet. They would have to get used to that.

"How?" Gerp asked. He was unused to Rodle's taking the lead in their predicaments, but obviously Rodle had been the one more gifted with the power of Nic Cage.

"Well, how do we usually solve our problems?" Rodle prompted.

"With science?" Gerp guessed.

"Well. _Yes_. But those problems don't usually involve women, especially not of the evil variety. How _else _ought we solve our problems?"

"_Like gentlemen," _Gerp said in realization. He ripped off his superhero garb – it had not served him well – revealing the three-piece suit underneath. Rodle did the same. They both centered their top hats securely on their heads, adjusted their monocles, and removed their velocipedes from their dignified leather briefcases.

"We're men on a mission," Gerp said in a second realization.

"Once again," Rodle agreed, growing a mustache.

"Alright, Rodle." Gerp mounted his velocipede. "_Let's find a planet not made of a cat_."

They were determined that this not be impossible.


	4. A Suburb Full of Cats

Gerp and Rodle had not ridden side by side on their velocipedes for long, growing more and more elaborate facial hair, before a thought occurred to Gerp. "Friend," he started, directing that title in Rodle's direction using a compass and several magnets. Rodle turned. His facial hair had taken on the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge, in minute detail. "Ought we not ask a good citizen of the Center of the Cats for their assistance? It is a gentleman's way not to advance straight into a battle he knows he cannot win. I learned _that _when I played chess with Nikola Tesla."

"A splendid idea, good sir!" Rodle agreed. "Let us stop at the next house." They did so. All the houses were exactly the same. This suburb was eerily cookie-cutter. They leaped from their velocipedes, which they left in the shade of a mighty oak, and knocked at the door of one of the hundreds of unassuming houses.

A cat dressed in a little business suit answered the door. "Can I help you gentlemen?" the cat asked intelligibly.

"Amazing!" cried Gerp, "This cat not only can speak, but recognizes us as of the genteel persuasion!"

"It is to be expected in their sanctuary," Rodle said, nodding solemnly. He used his powers of biology to answer the cat. "We are in desperate need of some help. You see, a supervillainess-"

"I am aware," the cat said. His eyes grew darker, more serious. "Thank God you are here to save us. We would not last much longer without you. My name is Stanley Wellington, and I am a politician."

"You have a _normal_ name!" Rodle realized. "Are you also aware that-"

"Yes, _felis catus_. In some deep corner of our minds, we are all aware."

Rodle was relieved. The folks of the Center were more civilized than those around the outskirts. "You're a politician!" Gerp said, pleased. "But politicians are rich. They hold sway. Why live in a house like this?"

"Everyone lives like this in the Center of the Cats," Stanley Wellington pointed out. "There are millions of houses just like this. We are all equals here. Even God is our equal here."

"What's up?" God greeted, leaning His white, fluffy head out of the upper story window of Stanley Wellington's house. Gerp and Rodle noticed that God was one of those cats that always had an angry expression and looked like its face was smooshed in. The most adorable kind. They had seen many deities in their lifetimes, most of whom were of the dark, demon-y variety, and this was by far the cutest God either had ever witnessed. "You guys want some autographed pictures of Jesus?" asked God. "I've got more than I know what do with!" He laughed and threw a few hundred out the window.

For mere seconds, in the Center of the Cats, it was raining Jesus. Signed by Jesus. Stanley Wellington cleared his throat. God was certainly among the most enjoyable dinner guests he'd ever had, but that still didn't make Him particularly enjoyable anyway. Gerp and Rodle would've asked God's assistance in their problems, but here they were, face to furry face with an even better opportunity: the only thing that can convince more people to follow something blindly than God – politics.

"I can help you," said Stanley Wellington, looking up into Gerp's and Rodle's faces with his large, dark eyes, as opposed to the smaller, lighter, more vestigial ones he kept in a jar in his basement. "But you must fulfill my wishes as well as your own."

"Do you need to get reelected?" Gerp asked.

"I serve for life."

"Are you a Supreme Court Justice?"

"No," said Stanley Wellington, slightly irritated at all the questions. "I am one of the seven Kings of the Center of the Cats."

Gerp's eyes widened. It was true, he'd had more than enough experience with Kings to have a general distrust of them. He hoped Stanley Wellington wasn't secretly evil, because then they'd have to find a teenage girl with which to vanquish him, and whichever of the other six Kings happened to be evil, too. One rotten apple spoils the whole bunch, as they say.

"Then what could a cat possibly wish?" Rodle asked. Intelligent creatures such as Stanley Wellington were beyond him – his gifts were merely in the areas of stupid biology.

"My wife," Stanley Wellington said, beginning to tear up, "she's in Starclan. I want her back."

"We are not _mad _scientists!" Gerp cried. "We cannot bring your wife back from the dead!"

Stanley Wellington's tiny jaw dropped. "_Dead_? Why would my wife be _dead_? Can't you see I'm only thirty-two? I'm no widower! She just won't come back from Starclan!"

At thirty-two years of age, it was no surprise to Rodle that this cat was beyond his understanding. "Well, where is Starclan, then, Stanley Wellington? We'll get your wife back as best we can."

"I can show you Starclan. But I cannot go inside," admitted Stanley Wellington. "The memories are too painful."

"I understand," said Gerp, patting Stanley Wellington on his tiny, well-tailored shoulder. He had recently been through a similar loss, as we all know. "We'll bring your wife back. What is her name?"

"Mathilda," said Stanley Wellington wistfully. "Mathilda Wellington."

And thus begins yet another daunting mission for our heroes. Cats, when prompted to leave places they would rather be (for they had assumed that Mathilda Wellington, like her husband, was a cat), will dig their claws into a surface of their choosing and are reluctant to let go. Rodle checked his pockets for a spray bottle, then checked his dignified briefcase, but it was full of mustache grooming kits and spare sensible shoes. He supposed he would have to rely on his gentlemanly wits instead.

With hope in their hearts (especially Stanley Wellingtion, hopeful in his tiny, inverted cat heart), they set off, men on velocipedes and cat on tiny velocipede. They made an interesting trio, to be sure, and would ride through the massive suburbia of the Center of the Cats for some time before reaching their destination. The journey would be long and arduous, fraught with danger but more fraught with Seven-Elevens from with our heroes could procure Icees. And finding a place, anywhere, without cats?

Impossible.


	5. A Fortress with No Cats

**The second in a series of unnecessarily idiotic authors' notes: Although ants do make a cameo in this chapter, I feel no need to thank them again, having done so in Chapter Two. I hope they will respect this wish. **

As Gerp and Rodle made their way to Starclan, a different story unfolded for one supervillainess. Without heroes to battle, supervillains are next to useless, and so this one was. She was currently hanging in her fortress in the Center of the Cats, which she quickly erected with her supervillainous prowess. You never know how they do it, but they do.

This particular fortress was a death trap. It was surrounded on all sides by a moat, and that moat, which was less a moat and more a lava-tar-excrement pit arranged in a crude circle around the fortress, was surrounded by dinosaurs armed with bazookas. In case it worries the reader that these dinosaurs, though peerless in raw power, may not possess the finesse to use a bazooka properly, worry no more. The dinosaurs were equipped with robot sentries attached to each of their heads that used the bazookas for them. The bazookas were located on their heads. And backs. And arms. And legs. And tails. I trust the reader to imagine they were also of the threatenous variety, as the reader probably knows more names of dinosaurs than I do. The supervillainess did not cut corners.

The fortress was also on the moon. The cat-moon, visible only from the Center of the Cats, because that is the only place it exists. Its formal name is Moonpaw, but to avoid sounding like a complete moron, the supervillainess instead referred to it as _MOON DOOM, _and thought herself profoundly clever thus.

Among other assonance-related phrases, and besides _MOON DOOM_, the supervillainess had also coined: "DAMN ANTS." Though not quite worthy of being "damned", the ants had nonetheless failed to meet the dame's expectations. She'd been busying herself by munching on an Almond Joy bar, and once finished, she'd left the chocolate-smeared wrapper near a hill of particularly well-fortified ants, considering their current living arrangements. She had hoped that ants, being what she took for an incredibly organized hive-mind society, would find the wrapper and enjoy the chocolatey goodness, which they promptly did.

However, while the supervillainess beamed with joy at her handiwork (if you're not going to be kind to humans – or cats – you've got to pick something), she could not help but notice with a mother's nurturing instinct that the poor ants had to walk some way on their tiny ant legs before reaching the candy wrapper. Therefore, kind soul that she wasn't, she moved the wrapper closer to the ant hill. To her surprise, instead of gratefully finding the wrapper closer to their home than a Walgreens to a corner, the ants milled around the spot the wrapper had been, confusedly wandering in circles. While the ants nearest to the hill _did _catch on quickly, it was the meandering scavengers that perturbed her so.

She proclaimed the aforementioned phrase, irritatedly moved her hands until they were in contact with her hiptal region, and made an indignant noise, realizing finally that ants were not quite as intelligent as she had first taken them to be. They were also, however, her only companions in her fortress besides a bald vampire who lived in her basement and only spoke Dissonant Church Organ. He wasn't much for conversation, frankly.

As one might imagine, the supervillainess was incredulous upon finding a new visitor to her _MOON DOOM LAIR_, and, as she could not fathom how anyone so handsome and with so apt a goatee could find their way in without either a fight or a warrant for arrest, she quickly conceded that he must be a supervillain wishing to join her on her despicable quest.

This was not the case. "Am I in the wrong genre?" Robert Downey, Jr. asked no one in particular.

"No sir," the supervillainess informed him, her belief being that he was in fact some sort of agent of chaos like herself. "I would say you are in exactly the _right _genre. But where are your mask? Your cape? Your gleaming and threatening spiked and/or finned apparatuses?"

"What?" Robert Downey, Jr. was befuddled. "Look, lady. I don't think you understand what's going on here. I have a set to be at somewhere or something actory like that to do, and I have absolutely no idea what or where this place is."

"You are confused," the supervillainess once again informed him. "Obviously some vile fiend has taken your memory. Do you know what it is you call yourself?"

"Rob-"

"_NO_!" the supervillainess interrupted, "Don't tell me your _real _name! Someone could _find you and destroy you_." Her eyes, behind their mask, narrowed and searched the room suspiciously.

"Oh. Alright, then." Robert Downey, Jr. figured it was probably best not to do anything to provoke this woman's obvious insanity.

"Perhaps you were a _Doctor _something or other? That _is_ a good prefix, after all, for a supervillain name."

"You think I'm a supervillain." It was less a question and more of a statement of recognition, hence the period.

"But of course!" cried the fair damsel. "There's no other plausible explanation! How else could you get past my bazooka dinosaurs and lava moat?"

"I used the highway running through here. My car's parked outside."

"_NO ONE BUILDS A SUPERHIGHWAY ON MY MOON DOOM WITHOUT MY SUPERPERMISSION!"_

It was impossible to get her superpermission.


	6. A Hamfisted Reference Full of Cats

"Look there!" commanded Stanley Wellington from his pint-sized velocipede, pointing a little white paw in the direction of a nearby building that resembled a warehouse, except for the fact that it was painted like what appeared to be an NES cartridge. "_That _is StarClan! I shall go no closer, my good fellows."

Gerp and Rodle had stopped their velocipedes and were paying full attention to the politician. He looked up at them, eyes dark and determined, and pronounced, holding his little fist in the air, "_Godspeed_." It was ridiculously adorable.

"Thank you, Stanley Wellington," said Rodle.

"We'll get your wife back," Gerp promised for the billionth time. He was channeling all his unrequited love-energy into this mission for Stanley Wellington, unaware that not only was the object of his affections a supervillainess, she was also possibly in love with Robert Downey, Jr. Gerp was even more unaware that the aforementioned lady was currently battling out a serious lawsuit by the realty agents of cat-moon upon the claim that her bazooka dinosaurs and lava-tar-excrement moat were not inviting to new neighbors, and besides that, the highway had been planned for months.

Gerp and Rodle witnessed an unwelcome sight upon finally gaining entrance to the secret Nintendo dance party or whatever it was that happened to go by the mysterious name "Starclan". Gerp's mouth dropped wide open. Rodle wondered how any cat could possibly live to the age of thirty-two, with all the drunkenness, and now _this_. He conceded that Stanley Wellington had most likely battled valiantly for his throne.

The entire setup looked somehow... two-dimensional. The two scientists, of course, were no stranger to this much, being rather two-dimensional themselves as far as character development went. But this was 2D in a whole different light. Every wall was painted the same light blue. Unnaturally ovular clouds floated in the sky of the walls. The ground was painted to resemble what looked like pixelated orange bricks. But even these strange observations could be forgiven if not for the activities going on inside the whole of the warehouse.

Cats, cats, too many cats, all flashing a rainbow of colors, frantically smashed their faces against foam replicas of the painted orange bricks that decorated the floor. The tune playing throughout was hideously loud, and impossible to describe, but went something along the lines of:

_Doot doot doot d-doot doot d-doot doot Doot doot doot d-doot doot d-doot doot._

The tune regularly shifted in octave, but it was simple, as if contrived from an eight-bit video console. Gerp and Rodle, having been alive during the eighties, perfectly understood what was going on here. But that didn't make it any less logical, or any less of a tired reference.

"For real?" Gerp muttered skeptically into his companion's ear, for that was the only way either would be able to hear the other. "_This _is Starclan? Somehow, I thought they'd... you know. At least reference a _different star_."

Rodle shrugged. "Well, this one's a classic. What can you expect? I doubt cats even know how to appreciate its full beauty. They do not, after all, have thumbs."

Then the realization dawned on Gerp. "_That's it._ They don't have thumbs!" He could've grabbed Rodle by the hands and danced with him, but instead he lowered his sunglasses to reveal the ones and zeros whizzing through his irises. "A cat cannot appreciate a game, because it doesn't know how to control it! Therefore, they do what they can... they _become the game_."

"Are you saying you think this is some sort of primitive arcade?"

"I _know _it is, mi amigo. Cats, as we all know, are far behind us in technology. How else could you design a video game, even an arcade console, without some sort of contraption made for opposable thumbs? This is the closest they can get."

Rodle shook his head. "'Tis a sad world. Well, we have to find Mathilda and bring her back to her husband. Any of these cats look... wifely... to you?"

"We probably should've asked Stanley Wellington what his wife looked like."

"Yeah, that would've been a good idea."

Gerp, determined to find the cat even if it proved near impossible, cautiously sidled up to one of the blinking felines. He tried not to look at it too much because it kind of made his head hurt. "Excuse me, sir or madam," he asked it.

"Not now," said the cat in a monotone, staring up at him with full black eyes. Its pupils were dilated beyond belief. "I have to get to the next level. Have to... rescue the Princess. She needs me."

Gerp's mouth contorted. "But this is a _game_! Can't you see? It doesn't matter how many pipes you go down or how many dungeons you get through! The real world is out there!" He pointed helpfully to the door, but it was almost hidden in the false blue sky.

"Don't need real world," the cat droned. "I belong to Starclan."

Exasperated, Gerp left the cat to its flashing, but only after asking if it knew of Mathilda. It replied that it did and pointed one paw feebly toward a lovely tortoiseshell a few yards away, also blinking and smashing her head into foam. On the way over to her, however, Gerp noticed something horrendous.

"_RODLE! NOOOOOOOOO!"_

**DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN. What has gone wrong? Will Gerp and Rodle make it out alive? Was the reference bad enough to even warrant vague humor? Will the supervillainess win her court battle? Will she require the assistance of any ace attorneys to do it? Does Robert Downey, Jr. really need to be here? Is this fan fiction even remotely about Warriors? At what point will the plot just give up and retire to a life of menial labor? AND WHERE IS NIC CAGE?**

**Find out the answers to some of these questions, but certainly not all, in the next installment of 2001: A SPACECAT ODYSSEY. **


	7. A Furniture Store with No Cats

"Well." Thus began the supervillainess decidedly. "Well, well, well. Since I have someone to _impress_... a buddy, even..."

"I'm not your buddy," Robert Downey, Jr. muttered. "I don't even want to be here, but since you _somehow _won that impossible lawsuit-"

"With the help of one ace attorney," she pointed out.

"_Right_. The 'ace attorney'. Really, I don't even know how it happened. He just yelled objections a lot."

"Shows what you know, sir," said the supervillainess, rolling her eyes. "But I guess a supervillain can't be expected to know terribly much about the law."

"I'm not a supervillain. I'm an _actor_."

"Same thing." She waved her hand in the air dismissively. "The point is that they have some speedy service around here. Can you believe, literally _seconds _after I won the lawsuit, they paid me my billions and knocked the highway down? Now I have room for the war zeppelin dock!"

"_War zeppelin dock_?"

"Oh, yes. And, as I was saying at the beginning of the chapter, before _someone who is obviously learning the ways of evil interrupted me_, since I have you here, and billions of dollars in cat-money at my disposal, it's time for some interior decoration!"

"What, seriously? I thought you were taking over the world."

"Cleanliness is next to godliness."  
"That doesn't make any sense."

"_Feng shui-ness is next to dictatorliness._"

"That makes almost as little sense, but I'll let it fly," Robert Downey, Jr. said, wishing he had an armchair to morosely lounge in. "On second thought, interior decoration doesn't sound too bad. After all, there _is _literally no furniture here."

It was true. The supervillainess had spent all her starting money on the fortress, the lava moat, and the dinosaurs. She'd had barely enough for a bed, then she spent that on cheeseburgers. Sleeping on the floor was better than a life without Mickey D's.

"You will become fat and disgusting and no man will ever have you," Robert Downey, Jr. pointed out, noticing the supervillainess shoving another cheeseburger down her throat.

"What?" she asked, spewing ketchup everywhere. She swallowed. "It would be worth it. Anyway, you're going to need a more threatening name. I noticed when you testified against me in court that your name is particularly neutral. It's not evil at all. Or good."

"That's sort of the _point_."

The supervillainess sat, stunned for a moment. There weren't any chairs, so she instead folded onto the floor. Then, finally, it dawned on her. Or so she thought. "_A disguise_! It's marvelous! Genius, even! People suspect Lex Luthor! They _suspect _Doctor Doom! But no one suspects Robert Downey, Jr.!"

"Um. Oh. I guess? It's not a disguise, really..."

"WONDERFUL! I'll be Rhonda!"

"Rhonda?"

She stirred, instantly recognizing her new name. "Yes, sir? This is a great idea."

Robert Downey, Jr. facepalmed.

MUCH LATER, IN THE CLEARANCE SECTION OF A NEARBY ROOMS-TO-GO. IF THEY HAVE CLEARANCE SECTIONS. HAVING NEVER BEEN TO ONE, I DON'T KNOW.

Rhonda the supervillainess casually inspected an armchair. Robert Downey, Jr. huffed. They had been here for seven hours. The supervillainess had studied three armchairs in this time. This was the fourth.

"Really," she said, speaking for the first time since they'd walked through the door.

"_Really_?" cried Robert Downey, Jr. "Is that the only thing you have to say for yourself after dragging me in here," here he paused to lift the handcuff attaching the both of them, "and _looking at chairs _for seven hours?"

Rhonda rubbed a goatee that she didn't have and ignored Robert Downey, Jr.'s comment. "Really. These chairs are missing something. I can't tell what, but careful inspection will hopefully tell-"

"_Careful inspection will tell nothing_! What do you want from it? It has a place to sit."

"That's it!" cried Rhonda. "Tesla coils! You're a genius, Robert Downey, Jr.! A mad genius, perhaps?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him under her mask. "Luckily I have some mad science laboratory decals back at the fortress. _CLERK! EMPLOYEE! YOU THERE! I'LL TAKE FIVE THOUSAND OF THESE!" _she screamed, pointing frantically at the armchair.

Robert Downey, Jr. supposed things could be worse, but admittedly, he couldn't exactly see how. He was sure he was costing someone a lot of money by not being at whatever set he was supposed to be at, and surely this wouldn't pan out well when he got back. _If _he got back. He still didn't know where he was, so it stands to reason that he didn't know how to get out either.

"Well, the interior decorating's done!" Rhonda chirped. She pulled a folded up piece of paper out of who-knows-where (she was wearing a spandex suit, after all) and examined it. "We're running ahead of schedule, Robert Downey, Jr. What would you like to do now before heading back to the fortress? We have another three hours."

He raised an eyebrow. "What is _that_?"

"It's our duty chart!" she replied. "I made it after you came here so we'd always have fun activities to do!"

"Let me see it." She dutifully handed the paper over. Written in from 9 AM to 7 PM was "interior decorating". From 7 PM to 10 PM was "movie night!". He squinted at the paper, but to no avail. Its ridiculousness would not dissipate. "We're going to watch movies after this?"

The supervillainess grinned stupidly. "Yep! And maybe make s'mores. It'll be fun! Perhaps grocery shopping is what you'd like to do with the extra three hours?"

Robert Downey, Jr. recalled Rhonda's previously observed habits involving consumerism, and decided he did not want to go grocery shopping.


	8. An Epic Battle Full of Cats

Rodle had been literally and completely sucked into the game. Assuming that 'hitting one's head against foam squares to make silk flowers, plastic doubloons, and mushrooms pop out' was a game. This was what Gerp realized. He hurriedly ran to his friend after hurriedly running to Mathilda Wellington and scooping her up into his arms. She stared at him with dilated eyes, but said nothing.

Oh, yes, Rodle had been caught up in the game like a _supervillainess' cape _into a revolving door. An elevator, perhaps. A jet engine. A fan. A kidnapper's fist. A turnstile, even. Gerp shook his head. Now was no time for his weaknesses! He frantically tried to clear his head of thoughts of his lost (evil) love, reminding himself that she hadn't even worn a cape, and to get sucked into a jet engine, she'd have to be able to fly, which he assumed she couldn't do.

What _were _her powers, anyway? They seemed to be Trapping Nic Cage, and that was it. Breaking into hotels wasn't a power, was it? Power-walking in heels could be learned. As Gerp puzzled, he realized something: _Rodle _was the one more gifted with Nic Cage's power of incredible intuition! He needed his friend now more than ever.

"RODLEEEEEEEEEEE!" he shrieked, bringing his samurai sword down upon the foam brick his formerly ingenious comrade was smashing his face into. Plastic coins poured out. The music abruptly changed. Well, not changed so much as went out of tune. It became... _sinister._

"Destroy our props, _will you_?" boomed a voice Gerp instantly recognized as belonging to God. They'd met earlier, after all. "This is Starclan!" continued God, "All here is eternal!"

"Oh, yeah?" Gerp challenged, throwing a bunch of shuriken in random directions. "Well, I'm _ETERNANGRY!" _His sword suddenly burst into a spectrum of color comprised only of green!

"That wasn't clever at all!" screamed God in rage.

"Remember your roots, God!" Gerp prompted, positioning himself in front of his friend, who was currently drooling on the floor. "We met already! Look!" He withdrew a signed picture of Jesus from the band of his top hat.

"_Jesus Christ!" _God exclaimed appropriately._ "_How did you- You couldn't have- _I cannot fight a man of the cloth_!"

"Oh, yeah?" Gerp challenged a second time. "Then will you fight a man of the _goth_?" His spectral blade's glory-flame spread across his entire body, burning the picture of Jesus in the process and transforming all of his clothes into Tripp pants and fishnet. An inverted pentacle decorated his forehead, and his eyes were ringed in eyeliner. It was totally HXC. "I never back down from a fight," Gerp said, his voice whiny and cracking. He lifted his vorpal blade with a hand drowning in accessories, from the fingerless glove, to the heavy metal rings, to the black painted nails. "Unless it's with _Nikola Tesla_. _That's _the fight I can't win!"

God hissed angrily and mewled a warning.

"WRAAAUUUUUUGHHHH!" screamed Gerp, charging, sword up, in the direction he hoped God was in. Little did he know, God was everywhere. But he made an educated guess about that, so he started madly slashing at the air, sending off beams of spectrum flame and lasers. Starclan, being a flimsy old warehouse, was quickly decimated, leaving Gerp, Rodle, and a handful of cats amid the rubble.

Rodle awoke from his video game-induced stupor. The first thing he noticed was Gerp, shining green with all the glory of a high schooler trying really,_ really _hard to be special. The valiant hero turned, and, noticing his friend, began to cry tears of joy (and blood) as he gave Rodle a reassuring grin.

Destroyed, Starclan was less assuming than ever. All the color inside had been created by black lights. In the broad daylight, the walls were white, the bricks were white, and the slowly awakening cats weren't white, but they weren't blinking either, so that was still an improvement.

"Game over?" asked Mathilda Wellington from under Gerp's arm, where she had remained safe and sound throughout his epic battle.

"Game over," confirmed Gerp in the pleased, yet compassionate tone of the hero who has just saved the day, looking into Mathilda's eyes with the same steady smile he'd given his comrade. After the green glow dissipated, Gerp used his samurai sword, which had transformed into a magic wand, to summon his cool chopper, Demonraper, from the ether.

He scooped up Rodle in his other arm, mounted the motorcycle, and they flew off on a bridge of stars back to Stanley Wellington's house to deliver two things: a wife, and a promise. Gerp was sure of one thing: Starclan would never claim another victim as long as he lived.

_Fade to black._

_Lights up on GERP and RODLE, lounging on a couch in STANLEY WELLINGTON'S living room. The room is neat and tidy. There is a door to the kitchen, where MATHILDA WELLINGTON is preparing sandwiches for both men, stage left._

"That's not how it happened," Rodle said skeptically.

"It was, though!" Gerp argued. "There was the sword, the shuriken... the fake money! Everything! Even the motorcycle!"

"And the _star bridge_?" asked Rodle, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes!" insisted Gerp.

"Well, I suppose it explains why you look like something the mall found in its toilet one day, and even your runny makeup, but the urine-scented spot on your... well, most of your pants, says otherwise."

"It's water!" cried Gerp, blushing. "I mean, demon blood! There were demons! I fought them! With my battle ax!"

"You said it was a sword."


	9. A Craft Store with No Cats

The smell of fake flowers and other artsy things hung heavily in the air throughout the entirety of the Michael's arts and crafts store. Robert Downey, Jr. had not decided this was what he wanted to do with the extra three hours, but Rhonda had literally dragged him here, having been distracted by a store pamphlet blown on the wind.

"Excuse me, sir," the supervillainess asked an employee, arms full of markers, glue sticks, glitter containers, foam shapes, pipe cleaners, and all other manner of elementary school-level craft material.

The teenager turned, one of those artistic types. She had hair too short to even be considered a pixie cut, which was probably why she was mistaken for a man. She peered at the caped criminal for some time rather apathetically through her green plastic-framed glasses before answering, "Ma'am, you might want to get a shopping cart."

"No shopping carts until I find out where to get war zeppelin materials! Have you a zeppelin-fabric aisle? Perchance some fins and rockets?"

"If you're looking for the supervillainy section, you should ask him," said the aproned worker, pointing her thumb toward a man also wearing the Michael's apron, but over a latex catsuit and a cape with an impressive neckpiece that was covered in spikes of the variety one might see on a bulldog's collar. His name tag read, "Professor Pandemonium".

"Good sir," asked the supervillainess, "Might you point the way to the supplies of villainy?"

"It's right there," he answered in a deep and commanding baritone, gesturing toward a large sign over a section of the store that read, very specifically, "Supplies of Villainy". The sign was not only upwards of ten feet tall, it was also on fire. Rhonda wondered how she could have missed it. Past the sign the store became quite a bit more sinister; the shelves and floor were black and covered in dagger-fins and test tubes (to represent whatever kind of villain the customer happened to be).

Professor Pandemonium followed Rhonda (and thus also Robert Downey, Jr.) into the supervillainy section, where the damsel eagerly perused the "Jet-Propelled Rocket Robot" section. Never mind that jet-propelled rockets were just redundant; it was a cool title. "Madam," he purred, smirking ever so roguishly, "I could not help but notice that your interests indicate you are of the supervillainous persuasion. Might I offer any assistance in your plan, which I trust is taking over the world in some way, shape, or form?"

Rhonda was offended. She lifted the handcuff in the supervillain's face. "Can't you see I've already got an overlord to serve? Look here, Robert Downey, Jr. is the most villainous of villains! We're in the process of committing great villainy together, _if you don't mind_."

"How can this be?" questioned Professor Pandemonium. "_I _am the most villainous of villains!"  
"You work at a craft store!"

"_In the supervillainy section!_" His apron burst into flames, and those flames burst into tiny robots that set about to terrorizing all the bacteria they could find. But only the _good _ones.

Robert Downey, Jr. was, unlike his companion, taking the man quite seriously. "Guy, I'm just an actor. For some reason this woman thinks I'm a supervillain. It's _not true_. At all. In fact, it's the opposite of true. It's a lie."

Rhonda, for a second, was taken aback by Robert Downey, Jr.'s very persuasive argument. Then she remembered that supervillains are persuasive by nature, and obviously this was some great ploy to get the _poser _to leave them alone. Professor Pandemonium was unconvinced. It showed in his goatee. Other things around him started bursting into flames, too. "Normally I would be unwilling to accept anything short of a partnership, and possibly also the signing over of a few souls or so," began the for-realsies supervillain, rising up in the flames of the destroyed supervillainy section of the Michael's. "But today I shall be _merciful_. And so I beseech thee: let me be thine liege. Nothing will change, really, except for that you'll have to follow my orders and I will murder you several times over if you don't. You also have to swear complete allegiance and wear _my _insignia. But it's not that bad." He laughed maniacally.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, dude," muttered Rhonda, overusing several commas. "What a _poser_. I mean, can you believe this guy? He takes himself so seriously. Let's go, Robert Downey, Jr. I got what I came here for."

And so all three left the burnt-out husk of the craft store without even paying. Frankly the supervillainess hadn't been planning on paying from the start, but everyone inside being dead certainly made it easier to avoid legal repercussions.

They spent the night watching old horror movies projected onto another moon Rhonda had had specially gravity-rayed into orbit in front of the fortress while sitting on a giant chair the supervillainess had forced the employees of Rooms To Go to build out of the five thousand smaller chairs, an activity which was punctuated only by either Rhonda's screams and claspings of Robert Downey, Jr.'s arm flirtatiously and the rumbling laughter of Professor Pandemonium as he thought up dozens upon dozens of evil schemes, all while building plasma guns and lasers.

He'd been searching for a new line of work anyway. Eight dollars was not the hourly wage he wanted.

It's just that it was impossible for him to find a job that wasn't at a craft store, with the economy the way it was.


	10. A Spacecraft Full of Two Cats

"Your wife makes a wonderful sandwich," Gerp complimented the feline politician, munching on his pressed Cuban.

"Agreed," said Rodle, smiling.

"Hopefully you gentlemen might take some lessons home from all this," remarked Stanley Wellington, smugly narrowing his eyes. "Learn how to treat a woman and she'll serve you well."

Mathilda stuck her head around the kitchen's doorway; she'd finished cleaning up from lunch. "_BACK IN WITH YOU_!" screamed Stanley Wellington. "You need to get started on dinner! You owe me like a week's worth of food, woman!"

"Oh – oh yes, of course, dear," Mathilda mewed sheepishly, diving back into her womanly land of cupboards and pots.

Gerp nodded in approval. Stanley Wellington's wife certainly knew her place. "We've returned your lost love," he said. "Now for your part of the agreement."

"I make good on my promises," responded Stanley Wellington. "Look outside."

Gerp and Rodle both looked. On the other side of the window, the suburb had disappeared, replaced by diamond-studded black: space! "Your house functions as a rocket?" questioned Rodle.

"What amazing technology!" cried Gerp. "I didn't even feel us lift off."

"Of course," said Stanley Wellington. "We've been in space for a while. Where did you think the bridge of stars came from to carry your motorcycle?"

Rodle's jaw dropped.

Gerp smirked. "Told you it happened." He turned back to Stanley Wellington. "There's just one thing I'm not sure of – this is really great and all, but _why _are we in space?"

The politician chuckled. "You knew of the supervillainess, but not her hideout? It's been all over the local news lately!"

"We just got here today."

"Well, it's common knowledge: Her fortress is on Moonpaw."

"Moonpaw?" asked Rodle. "That's a ridiculous name."

"Quite," agreed Stanley Wellington. "But it's tradition, you know. She renamed it _MOON DOOM_ anyway."

Gerp shivered. "That's quite a bit more threatening. She... truly is evil."

Rodle bowed his head, respectful for true genius, be it evil or good. Never in his life had he heard such a clever use of assonance, and of such an aptly named moon! Indeed, he suspected it would bring this... doom... from the moon... that all in the Center of the Cats and outward had reason to fear.

Stanley Wellington explained the supervillainess's fortress to the science-men. They shuddered in fear many a time. The impenetrable circular outside! (Corners are weaknesses, as all castle-dwellers know – and the two men were definitely castle-dwellers.) The similarly shaped lava-tar-excrement moat! The throne made of five thousand armchairs! And the _dinosaurs_! The supervillainess seemed to have many powers that did not necessarily stem from an uncanny ability to trap Nic Cage in Nic Cages. Chiefly among those powers seemed to be recruiting attractive, goateed men to do her bidding, as far as Gerp and Rodle could see. Gerp stroked his hairless chin sadly. He had never had a goatee in his life; not even half a muttonchop to his name.

Stanley Wellington withdrew a map from within his suit jacket and spread it upon the coffee table. "Here is a map of the supervillainess's fortress," he said, pointing to the title of the map, which read, "Supervillainess's Fortress (Impenetrable)".

"It says it's impenetrable!" exclaimed Gerp. "How will we get in? And how did anyone get this map?"

Stanley Wellington shrugged. "I don't know. I got it off of WiKittyLeaks."

Gerp was disgusted. "Sir, I don't want to know about your tastes in pornography."

"It's not pornography!" argued the seventh King vehemently. "It's a website that shows some secret materials from within the inner workings of the Center of the Cats. Really quite fascinating. Most of this information, even _I _never knew! For instance, are you aware that the cat planet, Earthface, needs a flea collar? Imagine life without it! Giant space fleas!"

Gerp and Rodle were not nearly as amused by this information as their comrade seemed to be. They were still pretty sure this "WiKittyLeaks" catered to some weird fetish. But a map was a map, and it was what they needed... or did they?

"Wait," Rodle said, interrupting the suspense. "This fortress has only one room."

Stanley Wellington was shocked. "No maze? No dungeons? No _recreation center_?"

Gerp shook his head sadly. "Nothing of the sort. Look." He pointed out how, on the map, within the dinosaur jungles and behind the lava moat, there was just one big gray square labeled, "Fortress Interior". The throne was there, and a half-finished war zeppelin (it was a very detailed map), but aside from that, nothing.

"How is this impenetrable? Assuming one can get past the dinosaurs and the moat," Gerp plotted, waving his hand with each successive threat posed by the fortress, "It shouldn't be _that _hard. I mean, they built a superhighway there without her noticing it!" He pointed to the crumbling gray shape labeled, "Ruins of Superhighway (and Robert Downey, Jr.'s Car)". "Wait a second, _who _is Robert Downey, Jr.?"

"I think, sir," began Rodle, "That he is one of the goateed gentlemen ensnared in the supervillainess's irresistible charm." Robert Downey, Jr. himself might have quarreled with that definition, but it made Gerp's blood boil. Gerp was not one to be outdone by some other man's _facial hair_! He suspected this Robert Downey, Jr. was also probably a jerk. After all, why would the fair dame be attracted to him so if he wasn't?

It seemed impossible for women to overcome their natural tendencies.


	11. Some Stage Directions with No Cats

"This is..." spoke the supervillainess called Rhonda.

"Yesssss?" hissed Professor Pandemonium, as lightning struck through the window behind him. Then it was broad daylight again. No one knew how this worked, but it was terrifying.

"This is..."

"Go on."

"_This is not our activity for this time of day_!" she cried, exasperated. "Come on, men! Stick to the schedule!" She jabbed at the duty chart she'd written up for the day. On it was written that "War zeppelin building [smiley face, heart]" was from 8 AM to 11 AM. It was currently 11:06 AM. "This is how organization is _ruined_! Do you not _want _to take over the world? Because if not, I'm running out of money, and the dinosaurs need to eat somehow!"

Professor Pandemonium stroked his goatee, previously mentioned and previously appraised in the previous chapter, not quite previously, but very sexily. "How very evil of a request this is. I think I like it."

"Oh, really? Then you'll certainly enjoy getting a _job _somewhere to feed this population! Fortresses don't maintain themselves, you know!"

The supervillain shuddered. He was not interested in another job. "Now drop that glitter glue, and let's go on to our next scheduled activity!" He was also not holding any glitter glue, but he dropped the nuclear meltdown device _disguised _as a glitter glue tube that he _was _holding, and decided happily that it was now time to build a nuclear power plant to melt down.

Robert Downey, Jr. put down the felt shapes and hot glue gun he had, at last relieved of his duties of "put some threatening felt shapes on that battle blimp". Just in case he was not yet questioning the woman's sanity, this would've been enough to make him do it. "Well, what are we doing next?" he asked reluctantly.

Rhonda squinted at the duty list, as if it was difficult to read. It wasn't. "Let's see... looks like brooding for the next six hours. Then dinner."

"Brooding!" cried Professor Pandemonium excitedly. "I love brooding!"

"Six hours!" cried Robert Downey, Jr. morosely. "Why_ six hours_?"

"Six hours is not enough time for all the brooding one of _my stature_ must do," said the Professor.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," muttered Rhonda. "Well, you'd better do some serious brooding, then, because you didn't help build the war zeppelins today at all." In fact, he'd constructed at least seven plasma rays in the time, not to mention the nuclear meltdown device. The supervillainess, on the other hand, had spent less time war zeppelining than scribbling on her hair with washable markers. She was colorful, at least.

"Why are we brooding for six hours?" asked Robert Downey, Jr. He would get out of this if at all possible.

"Because," Rhonda began intellectually, "it has come to my attention that we live in something of a _solitary fortress_."

"No one else lives on this moon because you won that lawsuit," Robert Downey, Jr. pointed out.

"Whatever the reason," said the supervillainess, "we ought to brood. Look; he knows what he's doing. He's probably _fake brooding_, though." She pointed to Professor Pandemonium, who sat in a Thinker-like pose on the corner of one of the five thousand chairs adorning the fortress. The room was somehow darker near him, and his eyes held all the darkness of an empty universe. It was truly an admirable broodery, and clearly obvious that the supervillain was not _fake brooding_. He had a deep, infernal anger in his heart that caused him to be irrevocably evil. And hot.

Neither of these particularly attracted Rhonda, who had her heart set on Robert Downey, Jr., who was really a pretty crappy supervillain, all things considered, but she wouldn't give up hope. Therefore, in demonstration, she sat in an armchair backwards, her face buried in its back, and tried to make the room darken around her, too. It wasn't working. Nonetheless, she continued her quintessentially quixotic quest for quietude.

"Hey!" squeaked she, "You're not allowed to be better at letter patterns than I am, you... you... marvelous, marauding maker of mayhem!" Although upset, the narrator was not outdone. Q is, after all, a much harder letter than M to work into alliterations. With a concise, somewhat smug nod, the narrator went back to her Romantic literature, and promptly swooned.

_RHONDA, stage right, sits upon her armchair. ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. sits next to her in his armchair, while PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM sits in several of his own, stage left._

RHONDA: What happened?

ROBERT DOWNEY, JR.: The narrator swooned. Weren't you listening?

CLOUDEMEH: Stop copying my fan fiction! Come up with something original for once in your life!

_The NARRATOR is out cold, center stage, and can't hear her friend's objections._

ROBERT DOWNEY, JR.: It's useless. What are we going to do now?

RHONDA: _(She crosses the stage, crawling over armchairs, to PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM.) _Hey. Guy. Can't you, like, wake her up or something? She totally thinks you're sexy, for some reason.

CLOUDEMEH: I can attest to that. She has this thing for... _(mimes stroking a goatee)_

_PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM is too deep in brooding to notice._

RHONDA: Come on. How are we supposed to have epic fight scenes with robots and stuff? We don't have a choreographer _or _the kind of budget for that. Also, if we're a theatrical production, I want this to be a musical. Except I can't sing. And we have no music prepared.

_PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM is outraged at the thought of being part of a musical._

PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM: Alright, what is it you wanted me to do?

_RHONDA points to the collapsed NARRATOR._

PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM: What _about _her? (_He takes a plasma ray out of his pocket.)_

RHONDA: No! No! We'll be stuck like this forever!

CLOUDEMEH: I am _not _taking another one of these.

PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM: Then what, in my array of impossibly evil talents, could help?

_RHONDA shrugs._

PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM: _(Exasperated.) _Fine, I'll go try.

_PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM crosses to center stage and taps the NARRATOR with the toe of his boot._

PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM: Um. Hey, you. Wake up or something. _(He suddenly seems panicked.) _Come on. Who else is going to write about how roguishly handsome I am? And how genius!

CLOUDEMEH: Not me.

_PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM gives CLOUDEMEH a nasty, but smoldering look. It's super hot. __Upon hearing PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM'S voice, the NARRATOR revives._

NARRATOR: … Oh! It's... you. _(Smiles.) _ I didn't think we'd ever have this chance. Could I just... smell your cape or something?

_PROFESSOR PANDEMONIUM gathers up his cape, looking repulsed._

_END SCENE. _


	12. Another Epic Battle, but with Fewer Cats

After surveying the map of the fortress for some time, Gerp and Rodle were convinced there was no longer any need to survey the map of the fortress. They had memorized each detail of the map, down to the giant black letters denoting things as what they were. Now it was time to do battle.

The suspense seemed to greaten; the conflict of the story drawing closer and closer, like a fly to a window where it sees a light source, the sun, coming through. Flies and other insects, most notably moths, are highly attracted to light, which is annoying for humans wishing to enjoy summer nights but a very effective and easily exploitable weakness should those humans come to own a lighted bug zapper. Rodle concluded this much with a swift nod, then tuned back into the plan at hand.

"Well," Gerp began, turning to his always-willing companion, "Looks like this is it. This is where we have an epic battle. Are you ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," confirmed Rodle. "This promises to be a fight for the books."

Professor Pandemonium was thinking the same thing. With his warm, but somehow also cold and very evil, but very sexy brown eyes, he observed Stanley Wellington's house drawing near to _MOON DOOM_. In his gloriously brilliant mind, he perceived a single gloriously brilliant thought: He would not let the science-men defeat the supervillainess.

She was, after all, a valued minion to his Lordly Sexy Sex of Sexy Assholery and Unlimited Evil, and so deserved to be protected. Perhaps, he thought in a head that was caressed by shining dark chocolate locks and wreathed in a sort of armored headdress thing _a la _Magneto, if he were to do battle with Gerp and Rodle, and win, he would also win Rhonda's favor, which, for some reason the narrator could not understand, was important to him.

Because Professor Pandemonium was so incredibly intelligent, and incredibly perceptive, and incredible in several other ways, not the least of which was in the vein of _kickin' goatee_, these thoughts processed themselves through his brilliant mind in mere fractions of a second. But that was all the time it took for Stanley Wellington's space-house to arrive, a meteor straight from the heart of suburbia, into the very center of the dinosaur-encrusted jungle forest that surrounded the fortress.

"Time sure sped up just now," said Gerp.

"Yeah, I felt the same thing," said Rodle. "It's as if some sort of normal train of thought that would take someone some time to come up with was magically retconned into taking place within the span of a few seconds because the narrator enjoys sexitasticicity most where massive hyperbole is concerned."

Gerp's face contorted in confusion. That was an awfully specific hypothesis, but considering his partner was so gifted with the power of Nic Cage, he figured the assumption was correct.

No sooner had the two men and cat stepped through the front door, which was half wedged in moon-dirt, than Professor Pandemonium appeared, riding a hideous cross between a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a shark, and several thousand wolves! (Or at least their pelts. It was pretty intense.) The monstrous creature made him seem even more roguishly handsome by comparison.

"WELL," boomed the supervillain in his regular deep and commanding baritone, "Well, well, well. Well. Welllllllllll. What do we have here?"

"Where is your mistress?" cried Gerp, readying his samurai sword once more. As he had leveled up, it now came with a machine gun attached.

"Mistress?" queried the Professor attractively. "It is I, Professor Pandemonium, who is the _ruler _of these lands!"

"He knows where his woman belongs," said Stanley Wellington approvingly, crossing his paws.

"What? _No_!" objected the supervillain. "That's just sexist! She signed an agreement, is all. With her voice." The narrator decided quite happily that the gleaming man of mystery was apparently attracted to _liberated _women.

"Aside from that," cried Rodle, "You are no Professor! _We _are professors! _You're _wearing tights!"

"_I'M TOTALLY A PROFESSOR_!" bellowed Professor Pandemonium. "I majored in _Pandemonics _in college! _With a minor in animal husbandryyyyyyyyyyy_!" The last part he shrieked in a not-girly and really sexy way as he commanded his steed forward.

Gerp and Rodle paused for a moment to pose in front of a totally sweet explosion to complete their transformation into mecha heroes with matching costumes before rushing forward into the _most epic battle yet._

Rodle sprayed nuclear power from his hands and _everything was covered in blood._

Gerp leaped triumphantly into the air to clash blades with the supervillain, who had a really cool scythe because he was, like, bad or whatever. _But not bad beyond the point where he could regain his humanity and redeem his goodness in the eyes of his beloved, a changed and totally still sexy man. _

Anyway, the twin blades plus machine gun and wolf-shark-dinosaur met with a mighty ring, and there were explosions everywhere. Stanley Wellington's house exploded in a karmic backlash made of tolerance power!

But even in a two-against-one all-out _battle royale_, the supervillain was monstrously powerful. He schemishly removed a laser gun from somewhere beneath his cape, and held it in front of Gerp just long enough for him to read the label.

"_Noooo!" _yelled Gerp, "A poison gun! But how!"

It was _too late_. Professor Pandemonium shot _poison everywhere_. And the poison mixed with the blood, so the dinosaur jungle was covered in _poison blood_! Everyone stopped for a second to wonder whether this was a blatant reference to the impact of AIDS on the community, then quickly started fighting again when they realized that would be too serious an issue for a badly written fan fiction to deal with in a relatively inoffensive manner. The point was dropped.

And so was... GERP'S SAMURAI SWORD.

"Today," said the Professor, "I will be _merciful_. I will spare your life." He spun the scythe around several times in his hand before throwing it into the air, where it exploded into butterflies. It was really cool.

Humbled, Gerp and Rodle donned their jet packs and sped away, but not before hearing Stanley Wellington call, "All is not lost! You must find the one person who possesses more power than does the evil within this fortress! You must find... _The Last Catbender!" _

The two men flew through the dark abyss of space, determined to find this most legendary warrior. And they would. Now, without politics on their side (Stanley Wellington had jumped into the depths of the poison-blood, to return to the hell-ether all cats instinctively know as their homeland), they were determined that _magic _save the Center of the Cats.

How would this work, exactly? They didn't know. Obligatory _impossible_.


End file.
